Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight Lightning Review: One of the Best Ereaders You Can Buy Is Now In the UK

The Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch was one of the best ereaders on the market. The new Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight is the same device, with an improvement (can you guess what it is?). If you're thinking of getting your first eReader, you could do much worse than starting here.

What Is It?

An eInk reader with a built-in lighted display to enable reading in the dark.

The GlowLight adds a new scratch-resistant screen coating, and the Simple Touch's rubberised matte design is far tougher than the easy-to-chip silver paint on the previous generation Kindles for instance. Those are improvements. But the garish new gray ring around the outside is an eyesore.

Using It

Simply hold down the home button for a few seconds to turn the front light on and off, and tap the home button to adjust its brightness. The light degrades the clarity of the text a bit, but overall, it improves the reading experience.

The Best Part

Read in bed. Read at night. Read anywhere inconsistent shadows make you angle a book this way or that. Read without turning on overhead lights on a plane, bus, or the back seat of a car.

Tragic Flaw

That stupid gray ring. It adds ugly to a good design, and its stark contrast to the black pulls your eye away from the page.

This Is Weird...

Eye strain from the front light actually gets worse at very low brightness settings. You're better off with the brightness set somewhere in the middle.

Test Notes

- The GlowLight model feels significantly lighter than some other readers, including the Nook Simple Touch without the backlight.

- Older eReaders flashed — or, reloaded the display — every time a page turned. To load pages more quickly, the new generation only flashes every five page turns. The text quality degrades prior to a flash — and the light amplifies it. It's not terrible, but it's noticeable.

- This name is just idiotic.

Should You Buy It?

Yes. As a gadget to use daily, this is on of the best eReaders you can buy matching up well with the Kindle Paperwhite. The choice comes down to content. The Nook is a product by Barnes & Noble, and the company's breadth of selection compares well against Amazon's selection for its Kindle. But Amazon might have already sunk its teeth into your library. If that's the case, you'll read this and say: "I'd totally buy this... if it were a Kindle!" That's too bad. The latest Nook quality, and B&N's making a massive push into the UK now.